I’m stuck at Southampton airport waiting on a flight to take me on my weekly trip to our office in Dundee. As usual it’s delayed, so I’m taking the chance to use my time effectively and write a bit about our strategy that has been long overdue.

3 symbiotic pieces.

YoYo is effectively 3 things. A web community, a publisher and a tools company. The three are inextricably linked by one thing, GameMaker. Our community and website is dedicated to GameMaker , we only publish games using GameMaker and the only tool we will ever sell or support is GameMaker.

We don’t consider these any of these three pieces as a separate entity. We firmly believe the success of one part breeds success in the other. The word that is used to describe this is “gestalt”… it’s a German word with no direct translation into English but most people explain “gestalt” as “The whole is more than the sum of the parts”.

A good example of this “Symbiosis” is to look at what’s happened recently. We set about creating a Publishing business. Almost every game that we have published so far has come from the community and the result of our (pretty successful) publishing efforts has resulted in us creating a lot of extra value in GameMaker. A lot of the changes we’ve made to GameMaker have only been available to the folks at YoYo in Dundee so far, but this is changing quickly so I want to use the rest of this post to talk about GameMaker and related developments.

GameMaker Developments

GameMaker’s fundamental success lies in its elegant learning curve which allows people with no previous programming and/or game design experience to gradually acquire these skills. This is why GameMaker Lite is downloaded for free from the website more than a million times every year. Many of these downloads find their way into schools and colleges worldwide and although we have a heavily discounted price allowing these institutions to upgrade to GameMaker Standard many of them find that ‘Lite’ has all they need to teach games design and programming skills. Similarly many thousands of people every day download GameMaker Lite for personal use and find that it delivers everything they need to enjoy experimenting with game creation. This free and widespread use of ‘Lite’ almost certainly makes GameMaker the world’s most widely used Game Development engine. It’s something we’re very proud of and are dedicated to ensuring this not only continues, but becomes ever more popular.

When we launched YoYo Games in 2007 we made a fundamental mistake. We hadn’t found the right technical experts to support and develop GameMaker and it took us almost 3 years to get the right people on board. Those of you who have been using GameMaker for a few years now may remember that we launched GameMaker 7 in early 2007 and didn’t issue a single bug fix or update for almost two years when we released GameMaker 8.0. Even then we didn’t release many fixes or updates for the next 6 months. Now, with GameMaker Standard 8.1 we are issuing updates and fixes almost every week. We haven’t been able to do this for free and we subsequently increased the price of GameMaker Standard from $25 to $40. The reaction to this price change was mostly positive, sales have actually increased, not just in total revenue but unit sales have increased by about 50% since we increased the price!

GameMaker 9

For those of you who are concerned that we’re neglecting our roots I want to take this opportunity to reassure you that this is absolutely not the case. At the time of writing we are just stating on a complete rewrite of GameMaker that will be launched next year. I don’t now exactly when this will ship but you can be certain of lots of new features and capabilities in EVERY edition of GameMaker. There will definitely be a ‘Lite’ edition which will still be free and we have no plans to increase the price GameMaker Standard again. We’re not forgetting users of GameMaker Mac either as GameMaker 9 will also run on OSX. At that point, we OSX users (including most of us at YoYo Games), will have the same version of GameMaker as Windows users. We have no plans at this time to include a Linux GameMaker, though we ARE looking at the possibility of having a Linux version of our C++ runner sometime next year.

We have a lot of other things happening with GameMaker in the next few weeks and months. These are all designed to EXTEND the appeal of GameMaker to more of the “Indie” developers. The Indie sector is the most exciting and fastest growing area for games and we want to make GameMaker a tool that can be seriously considered by professional and semi-professional developers. In doing this WE ARE NOT DESERTING OUR ROOTS, in fact quite the opposite. By extending the reach and capabilities of GameMaker we’re saying that you can start with a free and powerful game development tool, and if you’re good, you can then pursue the opportunity to publish your games on Itunes, Android Market, Ovi Store, Playstation Network, Steam, Web Portals, etc. We think this is EXCITING for the community! We use GameMaker for all of our games and so far we’ve had a No1 free download on iPad (Simply Solitaire HD), Top 30 Metacritic ratings (Mr Karoshi) and a Top 5 game on Android Market, “They Need to Be Fed”. Living proof that GameMaker can be used to create successful, professional games.

With the launch of GameMaker: Studio later this year you’ll be able to publish your own games on iTunes and Android Market. Studio will also make it easier for you to work with other people on your game. We’ll also include better tech to allow you to publish Windows and Mac versions of your games in places like Steam and Apple’s Mac App Store.

With GameMaker:HTML5, which will ship later this month you will be able to target the huge opportunity for HTML5 games.

We’ll continue to publish some of your games too and share the revenues with you. We’re working on making it easier for you to contact us for publishing opportunities, but I’ll write about that in the next couple of weeks ina separate post.

In summary, GameMaker is the centre of everything we do at YoYo. We’re not deserting our basic principles that GAmeMaker should start as a free program and we’re not intending to keep increasing the price of GameMaker:Standard. We’re trying to extend the appeal of GameMaker to Porfessional developers with GameMaker: HTML5 and GameMAker:Studio editions which will both be out in 2011. In 2012 EVERY version of GameMaker will get a complete rewrite (and many new features.

I'm really excited for GM9, and it's awesome that GM HTML5 is coming out so soon. I expected it to take a lot longer to release such a thing. As for the rewrite, if you can actually tell us this info, what kind of new features are you planning to add? Are the 3D capabilities going to be improved and new functions added, or is it just a faster runner?

1. "This free and widespread use of ‘Lite’ almost certainly makes GameMaker the world’s most widely used Game Development engine. It’s something we’re very proud of and are dedicated to ensuring this not only continues"

A free lite version of GameMaker is very important for keeping a huge GM user base and the popularity of GM. Some of these lite version users will finally purchase the expensive GM HTML5 and GM Studio. Therefore, the free lite version must continue.

2. "we have no plans to increase the price GameMaker Standard again."

Good, many students cannot afford over USD40 in many countries. I agree that GM standard's price should not be increased again. However, I think that GM Studio can be set at a high price because the only purpose of buying GM Studio is making money. Potential GM Studio users can afford high prices.

Finally, I really really hope that the problem(or bug) of screen tearing will be solved in GameMaker 9.0. Thank you.

It really makes me happy to see that GameMaker is in such good and talented hands I know that a lot of my students use the free edition at home to be creative and transform their ideas into games.
The new features in GameMaker: Studio sound great and I didn't expect it to be released before 2012!
All in all I'm really happy to be a part of this community.

Sounds good, can't wait for the rewrite and such. However, concerning YoYoGames, I dislike how the website is getting. I would rather for a seperate website featuring GameMaker and the sandbox. I feel for new users, it's hard for them to find it on the website, or perhaps even find much support for it at the moment. The split should be made when GameMaker HTML5 is released, that way it's more like Newgrounds and a Youtube for games(the first goal YoYoGames had in mind).

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Oooooh. This is so exciting :3. I really can't wait -- especially with all the new developments on the publishing side in places such as Steam etc.

Even if you were to increase GM Standard's price a bit more, I don't think people would really mind too much. $40 is NOT expensive when you compare it to the cost of other design software -- what my engineering design software for university costs alone could buy GM several times over.

yes!!! we can publish to the itunes store and ovi store success, game maker is used in almost every secondary school in england!!! thought you would like to hear that, some of them use std,but if studio is not too high(not over £30) then i might get it, but it is nice to see yoyo games progressing

Thanks for the post, guys. Weird about how sales increased with the price increase!

Not really. It's one of the basic principles of marketing: people who are completely ignorant of a product (i.e. new users) will usually assume higher price = higher quality. It's why people pay ridiculous amounts of money for designer purses when in reality they couldn't tell the difference between a real one and a knockoff.

The only issue with raising prices is losing customers who do know about the product already. They're more objective about it because they know the quality beforehand. Luckily, with GM, it seems to have held its ground in that regard . Thanks, GMC!

-IMP

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Thank you for the update. I'm very eager to see a complete list of Studio features. Perhaps more videos or presentations of how the new features will work. I like this concept for supporting multiple platforms much better than the current one. Studio will definitely be on my wishlist -- if not in my shopping cart the moment it is released. Thanks again.

1.) If we buy HTML5, will we get a discounted price on Studio when it's released?

I see no reason for this.. specially thinking that HTML5 buyers dont get a discount if they bought 8.1 before..

Not a good comparison.

And they are already offering a discount that goes well beyond the potential 25/40 dollars people paid for their GM8. They are offering $100 off, thats the incentive. Adding an extra $10-$15 for some purchasers won't increase purchases at all.

An incentive for those who spent $100-$200 on GM:HTML5 is much more important. But this is dependant on how long it takes for Studio to be released after the release of GM:HTML5.

Personally I think that GM:HTML5 will end up as just an interum product. Available only until the release of Studio. After then, it will just be gobbled up into Studio.

1.) If we buy HTML5, will we get a discounted price on Studio when it's released?

I see no reason for this.. specially thinking that HTML5 buyers dont get a discount if they bought 8.1 before..

Not a good comparison.

And they are already offering a discount that goes well beyond the potential 25/40 dollars people paid for their GM8. They are offering $100 off, thats the incentive. Adding an extra $10-$15 for some purchasers won't increase purchases at all.

An incentive for those who spent $100-$200 on GM:HTML5 is much more important. But this is dependant on how long it takes for Studio to be released after the release of GM:HTML5.

Personally I think that GM:HTML5 will end up as just an interum product. Available only until the release of Studio. After then, it will just be gobbled up into Studio.

They don't want to disappoint us, so they wont promise you anything that has even the slightest chance of not going ahead.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. Do you know how hateful this community is? Anything they do will disappoint some of us, and they know it.

Sad, but true.

- if they miss a due date, members bash them for not running their business right.

- when they deliver on time, members bash them for releasing too soon, and not having enough new features.

But like you say, YoYo has figured this out, and they don't take the GMC seriously. (The one exception is Mike/Russell in the GM 8.1 forum. They request our comments, and pay attention to ones that make sense.)

In the rush to make Gamemaker "Serious Business" please try not to forget where it started. I'm a bit concerned about the possible fragmentation of the Gamemaker user community, with the schism between free and commercial games being the obvious issue but treatment of "lite" users also being a concern.

I'd draw a comparison with the electronic CAD field where products that started out for the hobyist try to go commercial but the products don't compete with the existing big players. I'm guessing in this field that would be Adobe Flash?

Provided that admin fees don't wipe it out there's probably a case for a "registered lite" license that just knocks off the watermark but still only allows the basic feature set. Most of Water Panic would run under "Lite" and in fact I was always suprised how little was restricted under 5.3. With later versions the restriction is greater but even so "Lite" appears a capable platform.

A tool to indicate if "Standard" features have been used in a game would be usefull. If I publish an example I'd like to know if its Lite-compatible or not?

Please try to maintain some degree of game portability between similar versions. I've just upgraded from 8.0 to 8.1 primarily for the d3d_ambient_lite command and I find I now have another file extension to contend with. Version ratcheting can be a serious pain, though if you must do it then I suppose changing the extension is better than silently changing a file.

Please try to deal with the fragmentation of the yoyogames website. There's a whole second forum that was probably meant to be the "official" forum I guess. It look a bit spammy and neglected now so I presume GMC is the de-facto official channel again.

I've been out of the loop about five years doing other stuff (cornering the market in virtual beachballs in IMVU chat) and I'm curious what platforms I can develop for now?

At the moment;Windows with regular GMMac with GM4MACiOS/Android is in houseHTML5 is becoming a platform

In the next yearWindows (regular GM, GM4HTML5 and Studio)Mac (GM4MAC and Studio) it's still if you can compile a file to run on a mac outside of a browser with GM4HTML5.HTML5 (GM4HTML5 and Studio)iOS/Android (GM Studio only)

It sounds like studio's platforms will constantly be extended too.

EDIT: Oh and I guess I better respond to this

Guys, don't get your hopes up on the timing thing. I can't say [companies in general can predict] when things will be released.

(I don't know how to put it in the heading but this is my quote, I'm quite a bit of a luddite)They don't want to disappoint us, so they wont promise you anything that has even the slightest chance of not going ahead.

Riiiiiiiiiiiiight. Do you know how hateful this community is? Anything they do will disappoint some of us, and they know it.

Did I say anything about them not knowing they will disappoint us? Look around bud, unfortunately the whole world is like this community, any decision will disappoint someone. In fact what I was saying was that companies in general will never publish anything that is not true, which is why they have to be careful in what they share and what they don't because if it shakes out that it doesn't happen, they come off as liars. :D Hopefully I don't seem quite so naive anymore. Woot!

Please try to maintain some degree of game portability between similar versions. I've just upgraded from 8.0 to 8.1 primarily for the d3d_ambient_lite command and I find I now have another file extension to contend with. Version ratcheting can be a serious pain, though if you must do it then I suppose changing the extension is better than silently changing a file.

We have enough trouble with GM7 trying and failing to load gm8 GMK files as it is. We pushed very hard for the GM devs to make sure that does not happen ever again.

I personally deal with File is corrupt error 10 times a day. I use GM7 and have to make darn sure GM8 does not suddenly become my default opener for the file. I already almost lost a big GM7 project because of that. GM8 and 7 being so similar looking, one moment of intention and you've loaded a gm7 project in gm8 and saved it as gm8.

We have enough trouble with GM7 trying and failing to load gm8 GMK files as it is. We pushed very hard for the GM devs to make sure that does not happen ever again.

I personally deal with File is corrupt error 10 times a day. I use GM7 and have to make darn sure GM8 does not suddenly become my default opener for the file. I already almost lost a big GM7 project because of that. GM8 and 7 being so similar looking, one moment of intention and you've loaded a gm7 project in gm8 and saved it as gm8.

Please don't misunderstand me, what I would like to see is a common file format, and attempting to load a game for a newer version in an older version just either

1: Indicate that the file was from a newer version and might contain unsupported commands, leaving it to the user to fix

or better still

2: Parse it and give warnings whenever an unsupported command is found.

im disgusted at the prices and direction youve gone. GameMaker is not what it used to be and the involvement of yoyogames as a corporate structure has pushed me away. I cannot believe what has happened to a great program and a great community. Its sad and Ihope someday that GameMaker returns to its former glory as an affordable open platform for creative development. I loved this program and the community, but this is the last straw, with tiers of highly paid upgrades and new features marketed as gimmicks.

GM used to be about creativity, now its just another product, and one I cant stand behind anymore.

im disgusted at the prices and direction youve gone. GameMaker is not what it used to be and the involvement of yoyogames as a corporate structure has pushed me away. I cannot believe what has happened to a great program and a great community. Its sad and Ihope someday that GameMaker returns to its former glory as an affordable open platform for creative development. I loved this program and the community, but this is the last straw, with tiers of highly paid upgrades and new features marketed as gimmicks.

GM used to be about creativity, now its just another product, and one I cant stand behind anymore.

Good, see you later.

You don't speak for the rest of the community. And judging by the positive response to GM:HTML5 and the anticipation of Studio a lot of people like the direction YYGs is going.

im disgusted at the prices and direction youve gone. GameMaker is not what it used to be and the involvement of yoyogames as a corporate structure has pushed me away. I cannot believe what has happened to a great program and a great community. Its sad and Ihope someday that GameMaker returns to its former glory as an affordable open platform for creative development. I loved this program and the community, but this is the last straw, with tiers of highly paid upgrades and new features marketed as gimmicks.

GM used to be about creativity, now its just another product, and one I cant stand behind anymore.

I'm a bit perplexed. GM8.1 lite is actually more functional than GM8/7/6/5 lite, as it has image rotation supported. It's still free to use by anyone.

What's happening is we're getting more platforms to develop for (Mac, Web, and hopefully soon iOS). This is what the community want. This comes with a price, people are putting in long hours getting these programs up&running.

There is a saying, you can't have your cake and eat it. Funnily enough, Yoyogames actually manages to do it. GM lite is still free, it's still very functional, and GM standard is still very affordable.

It's also got other products coming up which GM users can expand to. Yes, they are priced higher. What do you expect? Work costs money.

There is a saying, you can't have your cake and eat it. Funnily enough, Yoyogames actually manages to do it. GM lite is still free, it's still very functional, and GM standard is still very affordable.

Before I shoot my mouth off about something I don't know can you tell me if exe creation was taken away in GM8.1? If it was then I think it is a bad decision, I do not believe that "Lite" usage detracts from registrations in the long term. Don't think of it as giving away expensive work for free, think of it as "bait". I'd be more offended that someone on the Yoyo payroll wasted time making that decision. A better idea might be to give away a little bit more, like maybe enough of the D3D interface to set a basic camera and draw walls. Enough that someone can write a crude FPS maybe, but hey if they registered they could add stuff like lighting, shapes, or even just floor and a ceiling instead of blank room background.

FWIW can you really grumble about the switch from $25 to $40? its been $25 for an awfully long time?

HTML5 is an oddball right now, I can see it having the potential to be very big, annoyingly Microsoft only allow XP to update to IE8 and there's still a lot of Win XP out there but for everything newer the "runs in your browser with no plugin required" thing is awesome. If it breaks over into more general web design then $199 may be cheap, however if it just remains another flavour of gamemaker then $79 is dear. Personally I'd like to see it stay at the $99 mark and hopefully retain a "Indie" developer culture for a bit longer.

Before I shoot my mouth off about something I don't know can you tell me if exe creation was taken away in GM8.1? If it was then I think it is a bad decision, I do not believe that "Lite" usage detracts from registrations in the long term. Don't think of it as giving away expensive work for free, think of it as "bait". I'd be more offended that someone on the Yoyo payroll wasted time making that decision. A better idea might be to give away a little bit more, like maybe enough of the D3D interface to set a basic camera and draw walls. Enough that someone can write a crude FPS maybe, but hey if they registered they could add stuff like lighting, shapes, or even just floor and a ceiling instead of blank room background.

FWIW can you really grumble about the switch from $25 to $40? its been $25 for an awfully long time?

HTML5 is an oddball right now, I can see it having the potential to be very big, annoyingly Microsoft only allow XP to update to IE8 and there's still a lot of Win XP out there but for everything newer the "runs in your browser with no plugin required" thing is awesome. If it breaks over into more general web design then $199 may be cheap, however if it just remains another flavour of gamemaker then $79 is dear. Personally I'd like to see it stay at the $99 mark and hopefully retain a "Indie" developer culture for a bit longer.

(ditto NPT) From my position it's hard to grumble.GM8.1 lite does have a watermark on it's .exe's. A 32x32 (I think) icon which you can position around the screen. I personally wasn't a fan, and there were a few people who were upset about that decision.

For those who talk about 'yoyogames corporate structure' they actually had a topic here, to discuss it, and we pooh-hooed the .exe removal, and the watermark was nominated as an acceptable alternative.

They did give away a little more. The new features they'd worked on for the room editor (zoom, etc) and sprite rotation.. always a big one for beginners (space ships, race cars, bullets.. image_angle has thwarted lite users for years!).

$25-$40... sure, that jump may be a bit upsetting. But look at it from this way from me. I bought GM7, got a free update to GM8 (because I brought it x time amount from GM8 release) and then from there, got a free update to GM8.1.

Also, GM8.1 has an autoupdater, we have people actively working on squashing any bugs. This is the same with GM4Mac(and GM HTML5). They kinda juggle their time between them.

$25 was a steal when Mark was running it(and when YYG's took over). Now we've got a lot more than 'just Mark', working on GM continuously, if the bugtracker is anything to go by, and the price has gone up. Upsetting? Maybe, but I wouldn't call it corporate greed, it's virtually necessary. The sales of GM have actually increased since the price increase, IIRC, so something's gone right somewhere.

I guess as a 'new user' the $40 price tag, and the $200 for HTM5 when it's released, are pretty hefty, but as a current GM user, I think YYG's priorities are right on for me. Explanding&improving GM, which actually helps GM users, who have forked out their cash, rather than just trying to get 'more sales' by having GM priced cheaply.

(I'd agree that at $99, GMHTML5 would surely blow away all opposition, but... it's just speculation at this point!)(I'm win xp, never liked IE. Use Chrome. And dang, this was a long post!)